Friday, October 22, 2010

{october: week three}

Weather Bear hasn't changed his clothes much at all!
We talk about what he would have worn the day before or if it rains like the forecast predicts.
We expect him to wear his raincoat this next week!

Alphabet: Letter F

We had a lot of fun with the letter F this week - our favorite word was field trip!

Poem: It's September & Mini Field Trip

We didnt' read this poem in September when you normally would, but since we were going on a field trip to tour & ride a school bus, I thought it was appropriate.

We walked down 2 houses from our preschool. The kids were SO good.

They held hands and stayed right with our group.

They loved sitting in the driver's seat, honking the air horn and talking on the intercom. The bus driver taught us how to brace ourselves when he has to stop quickly. We practiced. Twice. And his lovely wife made all the neighborhood kids pumpkin cookies to snack on afterward.

Shape Snack Revisited: Triangle PretzelsWe practiced making triangles again and we had a victory at home with my little girl. She was eating her pretzels for snack time & she hollered, "I made a triangle!" I was very proud of her. :)

Free Explore: Bean BagsI had a lot of fun making these bean bags. My little girls helped with the beans, too. Or actually they dumped almost the entire can on the carpet. We had a lot of fun picking them all up! :)

I had recently seen posts here and here & decided that I must make some for my preschool! I haven't yet found the plain ones that I made years ago - they must be in an unlabeled box in storage.

I didn't actually read any of the how-tos, but took ideas - like how to sew the edges and the size to cut the material. I used dried pinto beans as filler.

I wanted them to be more than just bean bags to toss.

These Halloween bean bags have a matching picture: spooky tree & owl, ghost & Boo!, witch's broom & hat, spider & web, pumpkin & jack-o-lantern, and bat & full moon.*Could be used to pair up students or an individual student can match them up.

On the backside there are 3 different materials that could be used as a different matching activity.*You could also set a point value to each fabric, depending on the abilities of the students.

I made these bean bags & couldn't get Disney off my mind with the polka dots & red & black, so I added Minnie & Mickey to the back.
All the even numbers are Minnie and all the odd numbers are Mickey.

And these bees were actually my first set. I used scraps that I had in my sewing room for all of them, so I didn't have to buy one thing!

The next set of bean bags I want to make are alphabet bean bags. I'm not sure if I am going to put the uppercase on the back of the lowercase or do 2 separate bean bags for each. That will take a little bit longer, so it might be awhile.

Sorry - I forgot to reverse the "B" on the Halloween set, so keep that in mind if you make your own. I must not have saved my Minnie bow template. I just used triangles that overlapped a little in Word so I could waste as little Heat & Bond as possible. I appliqued them all on & then hand-sewed the opening. I left a raw edge on the Halloween ones & cut the excess off with pinking shears.

We read The Runaway Pumpkin by Kevin Lewis. We are going to a pumpkin patch on Tuesday for our next field trip and the kids are enjoying the pumpkin theme. This particular pumpkin gets loose on a farm and wreaks havoc, but as it rolls by, the adults can only think of what Grandma typically makes with the pumpkins grown on the farm. Then they have a pumpkin feast at the end of the story.

We made our own pumpkin puppets.

Five Little Pumpkins - We revisited the Five Little Pumpkins story, but this time each student was able to have a bigger part. Five Students each held a foam pumpkin on a stick, and one student was in charge of adding the decorations and turning out the lights. I liked how they could hide the pumpkin behind their backs when they all "rolled out of sight."

Art ProjectEach student was asked to bring a clean milk carton or vinegar carton from home for our art project. This actually works better with our letter G next week, but we are so busy already I wanted to make sure the kids were able to make it & take it home. We made ghosts that light up with glow sticks. I pre-cut a variety of eyes & mouths and the kids put their own combination together. We didn't have much time to let Emer's glue dry, and I wanted the shapes to stick. So, I used a glue gun and each student told me where they wanted his or her particular shapes and then we all snapped our glow sticks & turned out the lights. These were pretty cool! I picked up a 10 pack bag of glow sticks at WalMart for pretty cheap.

Introducing the Snack BagI meant to have this ready at the beginning of school, but I just barely got it done. We are currently rotating through each child one day a week for the snack. I provide the snacks the other day of the week. I must have read about this idea somewhere on the Internet. I thought it would be an even better idea to have the directions on the bag - they will never get lost! I have included the jpgs of my tags & iron-on.

I can customize the information each week if something changes, using a dry erase marker.

Game: What Time is it Mr. Fox?
I learned this game last week at our Achievement Days activity and my girls loved it!
We had a few extra minutes at the end of class, so we headed outside to the grass and played until parents picked up their kids. Sorry! No pictures of us at preschool. I was playing with the kids trying to teach them how to do it.

Reading Tip of the Day

Students will be informally assessed using Alpine School District's PreK Standards, found here. They will be evaluated in the fall, winter and at the end of the school year. These standards were based off the USOE standards that determine if students are ready for kindergarten.

Thanks to the following businesses and individuals who have donated to our preschool!